


A Phone Call Away

by ShilohWhittier



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 21:18:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShilohWhittier/pseuds/ShilohWhittier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A routine case goes awry when a member of the team becomes quickly emotionally attached to a victim. The team struggles to rescue the missing woman, and they work against the clock as her situation becomes even more dire. Will they be able to rescue her in time?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hi, I'm Shiloh, I'm new to this site - but I've been writing and reading fanfiction for about 5 years now. It's been ages since I've written one, but I figured I should fire up again. Anyways, here's the first chapter, hope you guys enjoy it, review if you like it, review if you hate it! I don't care, just review!

_Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death._   
_-Omar N. Bradley_

The day before her birthday, she was taken.

She turned 22 in a dungeon.

The room she was kept in was next to empty. Made of concrete walls with just a trapdoor in the ceiling. There was cot on the floor, dirty and stained. There was a bucket in the corner, and three huge jugs filled with water. In the early morning hours someone dropped a loaf of bread in the trap door.

The only other thing was a phone that didn't work. An old phone, with push-button dialing, from the nineties or something.

She tried it.

She tried it lots.

She screamed, and cried, and begged into the receiver, dialed every number she could think of, smashed the phone on and off, un-plugged it and re-plugged it in desperation. She hated that phone. She hated it for not working.

She doesn't know how she got there

_The last thing I could remember was walking out of my apartment, and turning down the alley way I went down as a shortcut to get the the diner._

_That was one comfort. Someone had been expecting me, Hal and Giovanna, maybe Joyce or Katherine. Dave? Tyler? They would know I was missing._

_Wouldn't they?_

_Yes, yes of course they would._

_I was numb now. I couldn't keep track of time. I hated that, I always wanted to know what time it was. Always. But my favorite watch was off my wrist, a small, thin, golden bracelet was there instead. I don't know how it got there._

_I didn't like knowing._

She was curled up on the cot, daydreaming about my favorite place in the world. Luis Camp, in the Rockies of Colorado. She just wanted the cool breeze, the smell of pine trees, the babbling of San Llamos Creek.

She wanted that place.

Suddenly, a noise.

She jumped terribly, sitting up straight.

The phone.

It was ringing.

* * *

_4 hours earlier_

"Our victim's name is Cassidy Tyler, she's 22 and a college student at Colorado University. She was reported missing yesterday by her boss, Hal Ketchum, at a local coffee shop. Our team has been called in because they believe the unsub is the person responsible for a series of murders in the Grand Junction Colorado Area. Three girls in the past month, all dark haired, blue eyed, 20-something women. It seems their appearances are the only things connecting them, they have extreme different careers, education and financial levels." Penelope Garcia read quickly from her iPad, scrolling through different images on the TV. "The MO is the same every time, the victim is kept alive for 2 days, tortured for another, and murdered by means of blunt force trauma."

"Here's where things get freaky, the victim's bag was found in an alleyway, presumably where she was taken, and the only thing left inside the bag was a piece of paper with a phone number written on it. It's currently disconnected."

"Have you traced it?" Hotchner asked

"I tried, but no luck. It's an old phone, an old system. Whoever is doing this is a smart cookie." Garcia replied.

"Alright, wheels up in thirty, we've got just a couple of days before there's another victim. Let's stop him before we get there."

* * *

She scrambled towards the phone and picked it up, and nearly screamed a raspy "hello?"

 _"Cassidy? Cassidy Tyler?_ " a deep voice said on the other end. She was hesitant, not sure if she should tell the truth. What if this was her captor?

She shook the thought away.

"Yes, that's me." Tears sprung in her clear blue eyes. "Help, please, can you help me?"

"My name is Dr. Spencer Reid, I'm with the FBI." the voice breathed, almost sounding relieved. "We're going to help you."


	2. Chapter 2

"This is unprecedented, we've been calling that number nonstop since we found the bag." The head detective, Detective Mark Williams, said in disbelief. He looked through the glass, where Spencer and JJ had Cassidy on speaker-phone.

"Sometimes, with cases like these, the un-sub will give the authorities some way of advantage, so to pursue a game with the police." Rossi said.

"Right now, though, it sounds like we have the upperhand, for the time being. If we question her correctly, and she is observant enough. But we have to be careful." Hotchner replied.

* * *

 _"Can you tell me everything about the room you're in?"_ Spencer said quickly.

Cassidy looked around. She had already studied these walls to a point of exhaustion. It was all she could do, anyways.

"Yeah, um, it's approximately 6 feet wide and 8 feet long, but that's my best guess, really."

 _"And what's it made of?"_ He asked.

"Concrete, I think its cinderblocks, mostly. Well one wall is just solid concrete, the rest is cinderblock, three walls of cinderblock."

_"Do you remember anything about how you got there?"_

She was silent for a long while, her eyes shut in concentration, trying to remember something. After a full minute, Spencer spoke up again.  _"Cassidy?"_

"I don't. I'm sorry." She whispered.

" _That's ok, it's ok."_ He sighed, thinking deeply, looking at the image of Cassidy on the screen. There was something about this girl's face that looked so startlingly familiar, so strikingly soft and kind. He shook his head. His job was to concentrate, not get distracted by stupid thoughts.

_"Do you remember anything strange the past few days before you were abducted?"_

"Not reall- wait, yes!" she nearly shouted the word. She nervously glanced at the trap door above her, and then whispered. "Yes, I had flowers delivered to me at my house, and notes had been appearing in different places I went often. Like at work, a couple of days ago I had two notes show up on tip trays, and then a third shoved under my door when I got home."

_"What did the notes say?"_

"They were weird, pieces of song lyrics, cheesy 80's love ballads, and they didn't make a lot of sense. Almost like they were meant to be riddles. Oh, and the capitalization was randomized, like Emily Dickinson style."

 _"Are the notes still at your condo?"_ Spencer asked.

"Yes, they're in a drawer in my kitchen, next to my sink. I was going to sit down and try to figure it out. I thought maybe it was this guy from one of my classes, he'd always been really sweet towards me, but there was something off about him."

_"What's his name?"_

"Jeff Klaine. He's a junior."

_"Okay, can you hold on for a second, Cassidy?"_

 

Spencer looked up at JJ, who had written all this stuff down. "I'll get Garcia on the flower delivery, and then have Morgan and Hotch pick up Klaine. He might be a good lead. I'll go to the condo." She said, pounding stuff into her phone. "We also need to look for witnesses, so I'll talk to Cassidy's neighbors."

"Have Hotch and Morgan also call in her coworkers, they might be of some help." Spencer said. JJ raised her eyebrows and smiled.

"Looks like you're taking charge on this one, then, Spence?"

"You heard Hotchner, he wanted me to be the main communicator once I got Cassidy on th-" he said in defense.

JJ put her hands up in surrender. "I just wanted to say you're handling this well. I'm proud of you Spencer." She gave him an encouraging smile, and was out the door.

* * *

"This is Athena, Greek Goddess of Wisdom, what is your question mortal?" Garcia quipped into the receiver.

"Garcia, I need background information on a junior at Colorado State University named Jeff Klaine, and I also need you to track a recent flower delivery sent to our victim at her home."

"On it like a pregnant woman is on pickles." Garcia said, JJ could hear her the vicious typing of the technical analyst as she hung up. As JJ gave the low-down to the rest of the team, Spencer continued talking to Cassidy.

* * *

 

Cassidy was so thankful for the sound of Spencer's steady, calm voice on the other end. But she still had questions.

"Spencer?" she said tentatively into the phone. He had insisted she not call him Doctor after she had done so upwards of a dozen times in a few minutes.

 _"Yeah, I'm here."_ He said a moment later.

"What's going to happen to me?" she whispered. He could hear the fear in her voice, the choked back tears. He didn't like picking up on that.

_"You don't have to think about that, we're going to try and figure it out before anything does happen. We've done this hundreds, if not thousands, of times."_

She closed her eyes tight, desperately grasping the phone receiver. She tried to believe him. She really did.


	3. Chapter 3

Spencer paged through the reports from the last three crime scenes. The details of what the man had done to his victims were just as gruesome as cases like these were. Significant torture sustained on each victim, the injuries implicated a possibility of a medical fantasy, most of the injuries were from surgical tools, some of the deeper cuts were stitched up. Repeated sexual abuse. Burns and cauterizing on some of the other wounds.

He wasn't really sure he liked having so much contact with a woman who very well might fall victim to these actions very soon.

It wasn't often that Dr. Reid communicated with the victims, not after the crimes, and hardly ever during or before. There was a heavy emotional burden placed on his shoulders he wasn't very comfortable with; it was skewing his perceptions of the crime scenes. Suddenly, the mangled, deceased victims had the face of Cassidy, and he dropped the folder on the table, pushing it away from him.

"What did you see when the trap door was opened?" he asked the phone.

"Not a lot. It happened so quickly." she replied.

"What was the light like? Was it outside, natural light, or did it look like artificial, fluorescent or lightbulb?"

"It was natural light, sunlight. And it smelled like hay. My grandparents have horses." he heard the smile in her voice, and his heart sunk. He glanced at the clock. She didn't have long. They had to hurry."

Garcia had spent most of the time since they'd gotten Cassidy on the phone trying to trace the call, but somehow the unsub had scrambled the signal, and Cassidy bounced all over the map every second. Garcia was working on tracing the pattern of the relocated phone signals, hoping they would make some sort of central point, but it was a long shot.

Meanwhile, Morgan and Hotch had been questioning Jeff Klaine, and it seemed like a dead-end. There wasn't a pattern of aquaintance-abduction so far, and they didn't think they were going to find one. It was frustrating. Something had to change.

Spencer couldn't stop looking at Cassidy's face. How did she look so familiar?

"Hey, Cassidy, have you lived in Colorado your entire life?"

"Um no, I moved here right after I turned 16. I grew up in Las Vegas."

He sat up quickly, almost knocking over his coffee mug.

"Where did you live?" he said in utter bewilderment.

"Um," she sounded a little embarrassed, and stuttered slightly. "In a hotel on the strip. I know, it's cheesy. My mom has been a performer her entire life. She retired when she turned 45, and mostly sings in clubs free lance when she can here."

Spencer leaned back, shaking his head. Hundreds of thousands of people lived in Las Vegas, it was just a coincidence.

"Why are you asking?" she said.

Now it was Spencer's turn to be embarrassed. She was a few years younger than him anyways.

"Well, you just looked really familiar, and I grew up in Vegas too, so..." he trailed off, for the first time in a long time being at a loss for words.

"Hmm. Well, how old are you?"

"I'm 25."

"So we probably didn't cross each other in high school."

He laughed, but didn't admit he had graduated at age 12.

"And I didn't leave the Strip too much, actually, now that I think about it. Um...hmm, wait..." she stopped "Nevermind." she said quickly.

"No, what?" his curiosity perked suddenly. He had a feeling, a really weird one.

"Well, I sometimes visited this place. Like a hospital. A mental one." she sounded strained. He could tell by her vocal patterns it wasn't something she talked about a lot.

"Bennington Sanitarium." he said.

There was a long pause.

"Yeah. My dad's there, and I'd visit him sometimes." she said quietly.

Spencer ran his hands through his hair, and then balanced his head on his palms.

"My mom's there too." he whispered.

* * *

"Spencer?" Cassidy whispered suddenly, her voice terrified and high pitched. Fear flowed from her, Spencer could sense it. There were noises from behind the trapdoor, she could hear walking. The slamming of a car door. Movement above her. "Oh my god, oh my god." she whispered. She crouched next to the cot, terror gripping her stomach like a vice. She resisted the urge to vomit, and was extremely lightheaded - frozen in place.

"Cassidy, listen to me," his mind raced for some helpful statistics, something that might save her. "the most sensetive points on the human body are the eyes, the groin, the instep. Use your elbows if you can."

"I can't, I can't." she said. Tears dripped down her face. "What's going to happen to me? Is he going to kill me?"

"Cassidy, it's going to be okay...just, stay calm." He said, but could hardly stay calm himself.

The trapdoor flew open, and Cassidy gasped. "I'm right here, Cassidy, remember to focus on me, okay?" he said in desperation.

* * *

JJ walked into the room with him again, and her blue eyes filled with concern as she read the terror on Spencer's face. He pressed the phone between his ear and shoulder and scribbled a note on the yellow pad nearby, and held it up for JJ to read.

_He's with her_

The man descended the ladder against the wall, slowly. Cassidy could hardly move. He wore green medical scrubs, and when he turned on her, she could see they were stained with blood.

"Help me, Spencer...Spencer plea-" Her whisper was cut off by a sudden scream.

Another voice came over the receiver. "Looks like someone is trying to find this little piece of meat."

Spencer grimaced.

"I wish you luck, but she's not going to make it. But you know what sounds fun?" the voice taunted "I want you to listen in. She looks like a screamer."

* * *

The man grabbed her by the hair. Huge and burly, he easily over-powered her, and within moments had her tied to the cot. Cassidy begged with him, pleaded. He placed his black doctor's bag on the floor next to the cot, and began pulling out his tools.

* * *

"Cmon, help me, Cassidy, give me something, you can do it." Spencer whispered, mainly to himself. Almost instantly, she responded, screaming towards the phone - as though she had heard him, but he knew she hadn't.

"Spencer! Spencer! Room 402, just like the man in 402!"

Then there was the sound of a hard slap. "Behave or I'll hang up on him."

All Spencer could hear after that was Cassidy's screaming.


End file.
